Friday, August 15, 2014

How exactly does water have effect on housing projects? Read more below:

Water shortage puts private projects in jeopardy

PETALING
JAYA, Aug 15 — More than 800 development projects in the Klang Valley
are being jeopardised by the water issue in Selangor, National Water
Services Commission (SPAN) revealed yesterday.

Sungai Selangor dam – Picture by Zuraneeza Zulkifli

Its
executive director, Mohd Ridhuan Ismail, said these private sector
projects were being reviewed by a special committee comprising the state
government and the water companies.

The housing, factory and
commercial projects would be individually reviewed by the committee with
special attention given to smaller projects that had been given prior
approval.

“The projects suffered delays or failed to get approval
due to the water shortage. The reason why the developments were not
approved was because it was just impossible to do so. At present, there
is no water for the reserve margin required for every project,” he said.

Asked if this meant the state’s current water supply could deplete if all the projects are carried out, Mohd Ridhuan said “yes”.

However, he could not provide the total value of the projects affected.
Cloud-seeding
operations are being conducted over the water catchment areas across
Selangor every day to raise the water levels at the dams.

Meteorological
Department (MET) deputy director-general Alui Bahari said a team
comprising officers from the department and members of the Royal
Malaysian Air Force would begin the day with a briefing session before
heading out to fly over the dams.

“Within two to three hours, the plane would have flown over two or three areas, and the operation will be complete,” he said.

Alui
said the department would then, through the use of radar technology,
monitor cloud formation activity to gauge their success rate as well as
for analysis purposes.
“When we are very successful, a lot of rain will fall on the catchment areas,” he said.
The
department has forecast isolated storms and rain throughout the weekend
in the Klang Valley, which Alui attributed to the monsoon season.
As
of 8am yesterday, the water level at the Sungai Selangor dam remained
at 32.10 per cent and recorded a total of 19.01mm rainfall from the day
before.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Just wanted to share a good good article published at the star online regarding Penang
and it's housing developments...enjoy!

A
change for the better: Izam uprooted himself from Alor Setar to start a
jeruk business at Chowrasta market in Penang and loves it there so much
that he doesn’t want to go back to his home state.

Many Penangites will not consider leaving Penang island, even for better pay.YONG
is a 33-year-old engineer who lives and works in Penang. He has
received offers to work overseas for double his pay but has turned them
all down.

“Money can be earned in any place,” says Yong who is
very close to his parents. “If I go overseas to work, the next time I
return to Malaysia would be to attend my parents' funeral. To me, that's
not worth it.”He loves the “no plastic bag” rule in Penang,
saying that even his mother has caught on to the green trend and now
brings her own bags for shopping and containers when buying food.“I feel sorry for the plastic bag factories. They have my deepest condolences,” says Yong, who has a wicked sense of humour.

Like
many Penangites who take great pride in their state and think it has
the best food and best of everything in the country, Yong declares that
“Penang is the best place in the world”.

“It is even the best
place to learn languages,” says Yong, who is bilingual and can speak
four Chinese dialects. Having done much travelling, he thinks life in
Australia and Europe is fantastic, but the people are “a bit lazy, too
slow and lack drive.

“If they continue like that, I don't know how they are going to survive,” he says.He thrives on the competitiveness in Penang where “if you study and work hard, you will get a better life”.But
Yong is realistic. He knows that even as an engineer earning a decent
salary, he cannot afford a house on Penang Island. So four years ago, he
bought a double-storey house for RM290,000 in Seberang Prai where he
now lives with his girlfriend.

“A similar house would easily cost
RM600,000 on the island (at that time) and prices are still going up.
People my generation have given up owning a house on the island,” he
says.

But Yong is not a typical Penang islander. Many won't even
consider living on the mainland, which is roughly 20 minutes' drive from
the island. They also think the culture and mentality of the mainland
folks are different.Although Penang is made up of both the
island and Seberang Prai (which is a lot bigger than the island itself),
for some odd reason, the islanders would only refer to their island as
“Penang”.

So, when they are in Butterworth or other parts of the mainland and say “I am going to Penang”, they mean the island.

“We
islanders tend to think of the mainland as a pseudo-Penang,” says
64-year-old retiree, Lee, who describes himself as a loyal Penangite.

Joking
that he is “retired only in career but not in his mind”, Lee makes it a
point during family meal times to get his children and grandchildren to
switch off their mobile phones and video games and take their earphones
off.

This is his way to encourage “communicative conversation” and bonding.“Otherwise each would be immersed in his/her own thing,” he says.

Lee thinks Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng has done a good job in the state and hopes the Federal Government will listen to the people and their aspirations.“As
a good government, you should emphasise and amplify the good things
that you have done for the people and not create a state of fear,” he
argues.

He misses the old government of (Bapa Malaysia) Tunku Abdul Rahman where, he says, goodwill and rapport were so evident among the people and “you could say or do what you want”.“Last
time, we could joke and exchange all sorts of remarks with our Indian
or Malay friends and no one would get offended. But these days, people
have become so racially and religiously sensitive and intolerant.“We
love the Barisan government but we want them to be in the opposition
because when you are in power, you never change and transform. If you
are in the opposition, you will change and find ways to be accepted
again.”

JW, 30, thinks politics in the country is a bit childish.
“Why is it that when the opposition gives an idea, no matter how good
or bad it is, his side will always support it but the other side will
run it down and vice versa? Our politicians are not mature enough,” he
opines.One person who has found himself maturing a lot in Penang
is Mohd Izam Mahazir. The 27-year-old uprooted himself from Alor Setar
to start a jeruk business at Chowrasta market in Penang and loves it here so much that he doesn't want to go back.

“When
I was in Alor Setar, I lived in a 100% Malay community, so my thinking
was a bit narrow. But in Penang, I got to mix around with all the races
and I found my perspective has opened up. I am a changed person.”He says his honest opinion is that Chinese make better managers than the Malays.“We
Malays are less competitive because we depend too much on the
government. And the Federal Government maintains its power by allowing
this kind of thinking that without them and special rights, the Malays
would never be able to come up,” says Izam, who now makes RM20,000 a
month from his business.He feels it is time for the Malays to be tested.“To
compete, to fall and to rise again are basic fundamentals. I feel if
the Malays are not challenged and do not fall, they will forever be weak
and dependent. So my thinking is to let go and let the Malays fall even
to the lowest level so that they fight and rise up.“Right now,
even with all the help the government is giving to the Malays, it is the
Chinese and Indians who are doing better economically and this is
because they have been forced to compete. Before I came to Penang. I
never quite saw things this way.”

Izam, who feels more Malaysian than Malay, insists he is non-partisan when it comes to politics.He credits how much and how fast Penang has developed under the present Chief Minister but totally puts the blame on Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for what he sees as a failure in the Malay language policy.“When
Anwar was Education Minister (in 1986), he changed the term Bahasa
Malaysia to Bahasa Melayu for political reasons. Why would the Chinese
want to embrace Bahasa Melayu, a term that suggests the language belongs
to the Malays, in their lives?“If he had stuck to the term Bahasa Malaysia, at least all Malaysians would feel the language is theirs,” he argues.

He
is also critical of people who, he says, are so obsessed with a party
or a leader that they lose their common sense. “I don't think that is
the whole idea of Merdeka.”Engineering student Mohd Azurun, 21,
is selling e-learning programmes for children part-time. He is studying
at a private college to please his parents when all he wants to do is
business.“Making money is the most important thing in my life
because I want to give the best to my family,” says Azurun, an Indian
Muslim. “In Penang, if you don't have money, you can't do anything.”Fisherman Sazali Abdul Rahman from Sungei Pinang agrees.

He
considers himself lucky that he has a house from the good old days when
houses were still cheap. But he worries that his son, who is also a
fisherman, will not be able to afford one.“Developers are
building houses but all these are million ringgit houses we can't
afford. I have not seen a single low-cost house built during Pakatan
Rakyat's rule,” he says.Khairuddin Osman, 53, from Balik Pulau shares the same sentiment.

“Houses
cost RM500,000 and above. We need to have a monthly income of at least
RM20,000 to be able to buy one of those houses and the Malays here don't
earn that much.“The houses are being snapped up by foreigners, rich towkays and companies. Soon only the rich can live in Penang,” he laments.

He
thinks developers are getting away with not building low-cost houses by
paying the state government RM30,000 for each low-medium cost house
that is not built.

“So developers would rather pay RM300,000 for
10 (unbuilt) low-medium cost units and use the land to build big houses
and sell those for RM500,000 or a million ringgit each,” he claims.

(Developers
are supposed to set aside a 30% quota for low- and low-medium cost
houses, but they are allowed to pay RM40,000 for each low cost unit and
RM30,000 for each low-medium cost unit that is not built into a state
fund meant to build low-cost and medium-cost houses in the future.)Linda
Yu, 23, rents a house on the island for RM900 a month and shares it
with two friends. Her parents are from Butterworth but she chose to
“move to Penang” to be closer to work.Having studied in a
Chinese school, she doesn't have non-Chinese friends and admits she
doesn't speak Malay well. “I write better than I speak,” she says.She
speaks English reasonably well because she studied Maths and Science in
English and later pursued a Mass Communications course in English.

For
Yu, having no non-Chinese friends is not an issue. “Chinese, Malay or
Indian they are all the same. A person's value is determined by their
attitude, not their race. It doesn't mean that if she's Malay, she's bad
or if she's Chinese, she's good.”She loves Penang and feels Kuala Lumpur is a poor comparison.She
likes the big city only for its shopping but says there's no way she
would want to live there because it is too hectic, too crowded and has
too many traffic jams.“I feel more Penangite than Malaysian. I am more sensitive to the word Penang' than Malaysia.”